Why we like spicy food, according to science

Why we like spicy food, according to science - BBC REEL

Рет қаралды 29,518

Жыл бұрын

What do humans and Asian tree shrews have in common? We are the only two mammals known to tolerate the burn of capsaicin - the active chemical compound responsible for making chilli peppers spicy hot.
An extraordinary 57.3 million tons of chilli peppers are consumed globally each year. We explore the evolutionary biology, neuroscience, psychology, and archaeology to explain why the chilli pepper has become one of the widest cultivated spice crops in the world.
Video Journalist: Clayton Conn
Commissioning Editor: Griesham Taan
- - - - -
Subscribe to BBC Reel: kzbin.info?sub...
More videos: www.bbc.com/reel
#bbc #bbcreel #bbcnews

Пікірлер: 100

@refreshyourpage._.0 9 ай бұрын

Speaking from personal experience, chili peppers can make me feel less anxious and stressed, just like horror movies can make me feel better, I think chili peppers work to relieve anxiety and stress. But my stomach will not be very comfortable and I will have some burning sensation.

@TJM2002 7 ай бұрын

Hello I am a educated and trained mental health worker. I really recommend you seek help!

@cloverdream 4 ай бұрын

Samee

@David-ol6fw 6 ай бұрын

Major props to the BBC for centering this around the origin of domesticated chili pepper and the world's current epicenter of chili variety and usage, Mesoamerica. Most other videos of this type focus on Asia, though most Asian cuisine lacks the ubiquity of chili that is found in Mexican and Guatemalan food.

@bakerkawesa Жыл бұрын

Can't taste the heat anymore. It's only after eating bland food for a while that I crave and can taste it again.

@kisutis Жыл бұрын

I am European and I love spicy food! I try to keep away from it and eat it less often but it’s like addiction.. at least 2 times a month I have to eat something very spicy :))

@EthanRadell Жыл бұрын

I carry a bottle of hot sauce with me like a woman carries her purse lol

@EthanRadell Жыл бұрын

@@asdfqwerty5389 if you are what you eat, I must be 80% hot sauce. Grew my hair out recently and it's weird to think I converted hot sauce into hair by just breathing

@n00bspanker 9 ай бұрын

2 times a month haha.. LIGHTWEIGHT

@TheSoBoGirlMindy Жыл бұрын

We Indian's have spicy foods too and sometimes we do get scolded by our mom for not eating too much.

@frisco9568 3 ай бұрын

Incase you didn’t know chili peppers are native to Mesoamerica(Mexico/central and South America) the rest of the world didn’t get chili peppers until the Columbus expansion. Same with tomatoes, avocados, chocolate, corn, turkeys, squash, etc.

@bumba6900 Жыл бұрын

idk I always tought of spicy food as a sort of challenge and the need to eat spicier food to prove that I am the superior being

@GUTOMOFFICIAL Жыл бұрын

Spicy food has benefits! 🔥

@tesstoby Жыл бұрын

We're all masochists at heart.

@HansDunkelberg1 Жыл бұрын

The urge to show off one's hardiness may also have contributed.

@MargaritaMagdalena Жыл бұрын

I don't like spicy food and I'm proud of it.

@stan-qf3dk Ай бұрын

@@MargaritaMagdalena weak

@MargaritaMagdalena Ай бұрын

@@stan-qf3dk Okay kiddo.

@yogasetiaone Жыл бұрын

Southeast Asia love spicy food

@frisco9568 3 ай бұрын

Thank Mexico for it

@tanakritgutzlapcharoen9457 3 ай бұрын

A good warm padkrapo cheers me up

@oneshotme Жыл бұрын

I ate hot things when I was younger but my wife doesn't like it at all so for 30 years I haven't eaten much hot things and don't care for it anymore since it's to hot for me now

@1life_Only Жыл бұрын

Oh..I feel peckish again 😭

@mimistar1427 Жыл бұрын

I have a big pet peeve when people refer to spicy as a shorthand for chilli or pepper. There are wayyyy many more spices that are aromatic and fragrant and aren't "Hot". This misrepresents the word spicy and unfortunately a lot of people miss out on delicious spicy foods (aromatic and fragrant) in fear of it burning their tongues!

@HansDunkelberg1 Жыл бұрын

It's their own problem, isn't it? Shouldn't it be possible to ask - or, when you buy something via self-service - to try out what is meant?

@larissatom6910 Жыл бұрын

Yes, “spicy” has evolved to equal heat but not all spices are hot. You could say dill on salmon is spicy, and be correct but if someone only construes it as hot they would think you were wrong.

@kisutis Жыл бұрын

Yes we often use English word spicy when talking both for flavours and “hot” food :) myself I love spices and use them a lot as I love so called colours in the taste of what I eat. I also love hot but one should feel which pepper to use and how much in order not to destroy the taste.. I don’t like chili recently but in love with cajun for spicing up

@patreekotime4578 Жыл бұрын

But spiced "Spicy" and "spiced" are two different words. We dont call it "spicy Rum cake" or "spicy cider" or "spicy ham". We call them "spiced" as in "with many spices". In English we unfortunately dont have a totally separate word for the effect of chilis, peppercorn, sechuan, horseradish or mustards. (My pet peeve is people forgetting that chilis are not the only source of spicy heat in food, and many cuisines use multiple spicy herbs to create that heat.) And "Hot" doesnt work because that refers to temperature. I work at a Thai restaurant and if you ask someone how hot they want their food, most people think you are talking about temperature. Especially since in Thai cuisine there are very spicy salads. To ask someone how "hot" they want their salad makes no sense. Only a very few people, mostly very older people who dont know anything about Thai/Indian/Mexican cuisine confuse "spicy" for "spices" and ask "what spices?" or "will it have any flavor?". It takes about 10 seconds to explain the difference between "spicy" and "spices" and they are educated for life. Not actually a problem. In Thai, there is a seperate word, "pet" and in Spanish the seperate word is "picante" as opposed to "caliente" which is temperature hot. (Although many Americans think "caliente" means "spicy" because of the fact that we dont have that seperate word). It would also be inappropriate to associate this with "pepper" as the word "pepper" was confused by colonizers who applied that label to every different spicy herb they encountered, no matter how different.

@ekesandras1481 Жыл бұрын

the English language just lacks a lot of proper words in the domain of food. Might be related to the fact, that neither the UK, nor the US, nor Australia or New Zealand are especially known for their cuisine. Cinnamon is a spice, gloves are a spice, but that's not what they mean when the say "spicy". And "hot food" is also no good alternative, because hot is the opposite of cold and not necessarily piquante. English just lacks a proper word for that.

@stegius2553 Жыл бұрын

savory.

@AuntyM66 5 ай бұрын

Okay that makes sense, I am now addicted to chilli oil

@Huhuhaaaaa520 Жыл бұрын

Wow Indians and Mexicans are so alike im taste matter

@HansDunkelberg1 Жыл бұрын

The tribes ruling Mexico for a long time have anyway poured in from the north, one after another.

@Huhuhaaaaa520 Жыл бұрын

@@HansDunkelberg1 no sorry you're talking about aboriginals and I'm talking about the real "Indians" upon whom this name was made.

@HansDunkelberg1 Жыл бұрын

@@Huhuhaaaaa520 Thank you for clarifying this. I wasn't sure.

@AmeliaBodilia Жыл бұрын

Capsaicin is also antibacterial so it would make sense that cultures with little to no refrigeration traditionally would use it in their food?

@HansDunkelberg1 Жыл бұрын

@@AmeliaBodilia That notion makes a lot of sense. India and Mexico are major countries having begun to introduce refrigeration only late. In the Baroque era, the European powers have downright waged _spice wars_ against each other because they were in such a dire need for spices as tools to make their food more appetizing. There was a group of islands in what's now eastern Indonesia - the Moluccas - known as the "spice islands" and because of this heavily embattled. I've read that the intention then had been to drown out the haut gout of decaying food, but it certainly makes a lot of sense that compounds like that capsaicin would also have been desired for a real preservation.

@HansDunkelberg1 Жыл бұрын

I'm reading that "chili" - for the pepper - means "hot to the taste", while the name of the _country_ of _Chile_ meant "edge of the land" and had nothing to do with it. Given how much that edge of the land - Chile - looks like a chili fruit in the map, meanwhile, I could imagine that from the beginning the meaning of "hot to the taste" may have come from the name of the fruit, after this name would have been copied from one for that southwestern part of South America.

@Shaun.Stephens Жыл бұрын

Yeah... I don't think that there were accurate maps or aerial photography when these names were settled on. Nice try though.

@HansDunkelberg1 Жыл бұрын

@@Shaun.Stephens Even without extraterrestrials, the Nazca-lines artwork, discernible only from the sky, illustrates what a developed sense of large-scale geometry the native civilizations of South America (in this case, peoples in what is now Peru) have had. Maya mathematicians have had an astronomy refined enough to have calculated lengths of days more accurately than it's done in the modern calendar. These cultures were much farther developed than those of Polynesia, while the latter did already boast sophisticated maps (even though not of our style of images on flat surfaces). Altogether close to all of this was waiting southwestern South America with its very simple outline to be reconnoitered... One should also keep in mind how thoroughly the European colonizers have removed cultural heritage of the native-American civilizations, especially the literature of these peoples.

@patreekotime4578 Жыл бұрын

There is no definitive source of the name of the country Chile. It may very well just mean "the place where chilis grow", or "the home of the people who eat chilis" as being named after some guy named Chili. Its also possible that its just a name for a place and it has no real meaning that anyone could remember. This happens all over the world, especially when it comes to places named after people as people names dont always have a meaning, or one that is still understood. (Despite what those baby names websites may tell you).

@HansDunkelberg1 Жыл бұрын

@@patreekotime4578 I'd say that it's quite little probable to have such a hit for two objects looking exactly alike and being denoted by the exactly same word. Yes, coincidences happen, but such a strong one?

@Icenfyre 4 ай бұрын

Jindungo from Portugal. I don't eat a meal without them xD

@RaissaHerbert-sg5ym 2 ай бұрын

Jindungo its not from Portugal, its from Angola

@joseph40ninjas88 Жыл бұрын

Haha sweat it out!

@sharathjbhushi3747 8 ай бұрын

So they made a documentary about spicy food without mentioning India? lol :p

@curiousGeorgelookingdiggerboy 3 ай бұрын

Indian street food is so hygenic they even use feet to prepare it

@luismendoza7338 Жыл бұрын

Eating spicy is stupid asf but we do it everyday wtf

@lordvenom4419 Жыл бұрын

Nobody can compete with me in eating spicy 🔥 food..

@blitzniteenti-ty Жыл бұрын

i do not like spicy food. i wonder when will it be banned

@cherringd7136 10 ай бұрын

Don't eat it then

@carlbjorling6058 2 ай бұрын

I don't like it either... and honestly I think some people like to say they like it just to seem more manly or strong. I've seen situations where friends are literally suffering while eating something very spicy but didn't stop it. Anyway best gastronomies of the world are in two countries where life expectancy is two of highest of the world and hot dishes are very little ones 🇮🇹🇪🇸

@arien_000 24 күн бұрын

@@carlbjorling6058 people from your country must be a little pretentious. My father is the only person who doesn't eat spicy food in our family and men like him don't feel pressured into liking it. As for me, I don't know, since I tried spicy food, it felt like many of the food that aren't spicy became a bit boring and I tend to get a little tired of them easily. Spicy feels like a perfect combination of pleasure and a bit of pain so it's fun.

@SolaceEasy Жыл бұрын

Advertising is the answer. It was not this way 40 years ago. Spicy was not typical. At least in the good old USA.

@patreekotime4578 Жыл бұрын

Nonsense. The only thing new is the kind of spice. Hot mustards, horseradish, and black pepper were staples to be found in the pantry of every American household long before salsa and sriracha became popular. Be sure that mother dear saved them for pappa and didnt let the kids near the stuff, but the labels were there staring at you the whole time.

@MargaritaMagdalena Жыл бұрын

Liking spicy food has become a civic duty and not liking it a taboo. You're probably better off telling people that you have HIV or that you've done prison time for m,rder than saying "I don't like spicy food".

@MargaritaMagdalena Жыл бұрын

@Pierre In How does not enjoying extreme sensations make one dull? Is not enjoying painfully loud noises also a sign of dull ears?

@MargaritaMagdalena Жыл бұрын

@Pierre In "Strangers look at your taste in food to judge you as a person. If you find spicy food painful, they conclude that you're a dull person who's not worthy to be around and deserve pity for your miserable existence. What's the problem?"

@snowf6307 11 ай бұрын

you're just white LOL